The house felt smaller than ever. The walls seemed to lean in, closing her in from every side. Every word, every glance from her parents carried more weight than the last, sharper and colder.
"You think you're anything special?" her father sneered. "You'll amount to nothing!"
Her mother laughed cruelly, a sound that echoed through her chest. "PATHETIC! We raised you only because we had to. Otherwise… you'd be gone!"
The words wrapped around her, squeezing tightly. It felt like the air itself was heavy with their anger, their disappointment, their constant judgment.
Seo Yoon wanted to scream, to run, to collapse—but she couldn't. She had learned long ago that showing weakness only made the storm worse. So she stayed quiet, careful, and invisible.
That night, in her room, she pressed her hands to her face and let herself feel the full weight of the day. Her chest ached, her mind raced, but she didn't break entirely. Somewhere beneath the fear, beneath the shame, a spark still flickered.
She thought of the quiet victories she had stacked up—the small battles she had won for herself, the tiny moments where she chose strength over despair. They were still hers. They belonged to no one but her.
"I will survive this," she whispered into the darkness. Her voice was small, but it carried the weight of a promise. "I will survive… and I will rise."
Even as the house shook with their anger, Seo Yoon held onto the part of herself they could never reach. And for the first time, she realized that surviving wasn't enough. She had to fight.
Not for them. Not for anyone else. For herself.